Afrikaans author Marlene Van Niekerk lived for a time in Triomf, the white working class suburb of western Johannesburg built on the bulldozed rubble of Sophiatown, once one of black South Africa's cultural heartlands. Whilst gardening she kept digging up its remnants, just like one of the characters in her novel Triomf, which excavates the lives of the impoverished poor white culture that superseded it. Sophiatown boasted names like Masekela and Mandela amongst its cultural riches but the Benades family inhabit a far from triumphant world of cheap brandy and coke, kaput cars, irreparable fridges and broken political promises.

Mol, Treppie, Pop and Lambert Benades inhabit a crumbling government house that is all they own apart from each other. Mol, abused and ageing, is comforted only by her beloved mongrels, her numbed resilience as forlorn as her buttonless housecoat. Alienated, articulate Treppie, "a devil with a twist, a twisted devil", furiously turns his frustrated intellectual abilities against his family. Pop, shuffling bemusedly between sleep and waking, tries to remember his lies as he slips towards death. All of them protect the doltish, violent, voyeuristic Lambert, the epileptic progeny of parents who constantly reinvent fantasy stories, disguising a family secret that is a narrative time bomb waiting to explode into the heart of the novel. "We have each other and nothing else", is their refrain, a catchphrase for the survival of a demoralised family adrift from the tide of change, where incest has become a metaphor for the crooked logic of obsessive racial purity, just as the topographical layering of Triomf over Sophiatown becomes a guiding metaphor for the social architecture of apartheid.

Triomf depicts apartheid racism with an uncompromising exactness that has sometimes been lost in white South African writing in English slanted towards a middle class perspective. As the Benades veer between aggressive passivity and directionless activity terrorising each other and their neighbours, Van Niekerk invites the reader to despise the narrowly ignorant sensibilities evoked by their racist vernacular, whose idiom is skilfully echoed in poet Leon de Kock's meticulous translation.

Whilst the novel makes no pretences about the ugliness of racism, its radical success lies in the way it starkly realises the hard reality that the Benades' position as whites gives them few privileges. Van Niekerk tells their story in a bleakly hilarious mode of comic degradation that captures strikingly the unexalted expectations of a forgotten class. Theirs is the desperation of those who have nothing to lose, of an underclass who have only the vaguest recollection of self-respect and just treatment for others and themselves. For the armblankes (poor whites), she shows, notions of superiority were built on nothing but the detritus of another culture and the promises of betterment peddled in the weak Romanticism of blood-and-soil nationalism byoudentlik (proper, middle class) Afrikaners, empty illusions described by Treppie as, "the fine print of fuck-all."

Although Triomf is a startlingly comic yet salutary reminder of the sustenance racism gives to class inequalities, it stops short of representing the social rehabilitation of South Africa's poor whites. In what is possibly the first truly post-apartheid novel by a white writer deserving the description, Van Niekerk opts wisely to leave the hopes of reconciliation beyond the boundaries of her fictional excavation of the suburbs of truth.--Rachel Holmes Afrikaans author Marlene Van Niekerk lived for a time in Triomf, the white working class suburb of western Johannesburg built on the bulldozed rubble of Sophiatown, once one of black South Africa's cultural heartlands. Whilst gardening she kept digging up its remnants, just like one of the characters in her novel Triomf, which excavates the lives of the impoverished poor white culture that superseded it. Sophiatown boasted names like Masekela and Mandela amongst its cultural riches but the Benades family inhabit a far from triumphant world of cheap brandy and coke, kaput cars, irreparable fridges and broken political promises.

Mol, Treppie, Pop and Lambert Benades inhabit a crumbling government house that is all they own apart from each other. Mol, abused and ageing, is comforted only by her beloved mongrels, her numbed resilience as forlorn as her buttonless housecoat. Alienated, articulate Treppie, "a devil with a twist, a twisted devil", furiously turns his frustrated intellectual abilities against his family. Pop, shuffling bemusedly between sleep and waking, tries to remember his lies as he slips towards death. All of them protect the doltish, violent, voyeuristic Lambert, the epileptic progeny of parents who constantly reinvent fantasy stories, disguising a family secret that is a narrative time bomb waiting to explode into the heart of the novel. "We have each other and nothing else", is their refrain, a catchphrase for the survival of a demoralised family adrift from the tide of change, where incest has become a metaphor for the crooked logic of obsessive racial purity, just as the topographical layering of Triomf over Sophiatown becomes a guiding metaphor for the social architecture of apartheid.

Triomf depicts apartheid racism with an uncompromising exactness that has sometimes been lost in white South African writing in English slanted towards a middle class perspective. As the Benades veer between aggressive passivity and directionless activity terrorising each other and their neighbours, Van Niekerk invites the reader to despise the narrowly ignorant sensibilities evoked by their racist vernacular, whose idiom is skilfully echoed in poet Leon de Kock's meticulous translation.

Whilst the novel makes no pretences about the ugliness of racism, its radical success lies in the way it starkly realises the hard reality that the Benades' position as whites gives them few privileges. Van Niekerk tells their story in a bleakly hilarious mode of comic degradation that captures strikingly the unexalted expectations of a forgotten class. Theirs is the desperation of those who have nothing to lose, of an underclass who have only the vaguest recollection of self-respect and just treatment for others and themselves. For the armblankes (poor whites), she shows, notions of superiority were built on nothing but the detritus of another culture and the promises of betterment peddled in the weak Romanticism of blood-and-soil nationalism byoudentlik (proper, middle class) Afrikaners, empty illusions described by Treppie as, "the fine print of fuck-all."

Although Triomf is a startlingly comic yet salutary reminder of the sustenance racism gives to class inequalities, it stops short of representing the social rehabilitation of South Africa's poor whites. In what is possibly the first truly post-apartheid novel by a white writer deserving the description, Van Niekerk opts wisely to leave the hopes of reconciliation beyond the boundaries of her fictional excavation of the suburbs of truth.--Rachel Holmes

South African reader in South Africa, 22 Dec 2007
For me personally this book is a masterpiece. Unfortunately I am not sufficiently fluent in Afrikaans to have read this its original writing. But Leon de Kock has done a remarkable job with the translation, capturing an outlook on life, by what can best described as, four somewhat sad and pathetic characters. The aspects of Afikaanerdom addressed in this book have been kept well hidden throughout the years, lest we should find out that white Afikaaner South Africans are not all that perfect, that many were hopelessly misled into believing that the Apartheid government really meant to raise them out of their squalored lives, that many were hopelessly misled into believing that their white skin gave them genetic superiority over black South Africans.

Its an uncomfortable read for a white South African, not a surprising one but certainly a sobering one. This book could well seem confusing, possibly even pointless to someone who has never lived in South Africa. This is not be a book for someone to read to get some insight into social commentary on South African life. It would be better read against a backdrop of a personal experience of living here. It is also heavily laced in South African colloquialism which could well deter some folk from reading it and it does labour in places. But I would urge anyone who has ever lived in South Africa or has roots here to read it - its an insightful commentary that flows between sad, tragic, pathetic and embarrassing.



SA reader in London, 16 Feb 2001
A great book, well worth the read! Both funny and tragic, you really grow to love the Bernade family as they struggle through life the best way they know how. The characters are all interesting, different and believeable and it was certainly fascinating from a middle class South Africans point of view to get a flavour of how it must have been for poor whites in the old SA.

A promising beginning which sadly faded, 13 Oct 2000
I think Triomf is a superb book in many ways: the evocative language, the grotesquely fascinating characters, the cabin-fever atmosphere of their dreadful house. I read it willing it to be good. But, and this is a big but, despite being gripped by the first 300 pages, it began to lose me and finishing it became a labour of love. I think this is because Van Niekerk gets the tension misplaced. The first half of the book is so compelling, with tension so marvellously built, that I came to the second half expecting some kind of explosion and found a fizzle.

Perhaps this is the 'comedy' of the book - that she leads you to expect Armageddon and what you get is something rather pathetic and sad. Whether this was the writer's intention or not, I don't know, but it left me flat and disappointed.

I do think Triomf is a triumph in many ways, but I also think it is too long and doesn't live up to its promise.

Rich characterisation of an under-class, 29 Jul 2000
I have just finished reading Triomf and am still reeling from its impact on my sensibilities. The richly drawn characters, atmosphere and humour, despite the "horries" of "reaping the seeds" of incest, make this a compelling read.

The tragedy of this family is its total inability to help itself. Their poverty and circumstances, which go back generations, are so entrenched, that they are trapped by them. Treppie, despite his wisdom and intelligence, can do no better than work at the "Chinese". Lambert longs for social contact. The only chances he gets come from calling political parties, religious fanatics, a prostitute and watching the neighbours. All react with understandable revulsion to him and his family. He, in turn knows only one way to respond and that is with violence towards his mother and his home, and of course, his inevitable fits. Pop and Mol accept their lot as the norm.

"Triomf" is not always a comfortable read but it never fails in its entertainment value. Marlene van Niekerk has a great empathy and understanding for the underclass that her characters inhabit. Her art is in the fact that you end up liking them.

Brilliant portrayal of life at the bottom of the foodchain, 14 Jul 2000
This is a book about poor South African whites around the time of the 1994 elections. They were the "privileged" whites who were guaranteed a job under apartheid - yet somehow they are still right at the bottom of the foodchain. This dysfunctional family does not need to be South African - they could be British, French, American - anywhere. They are the type of family we would cross the road to avoid which is why this insight into their lives is so fascinating.

The language is crude but necessary. Their actions are things we would choose to ignore in the hope that they would go away - out of sight - out of mind. Read this stunning book just to see the talent coming out of South Africa.

Afrikaans author Marlene Van Niekerk lived for a time in Triomf, the white working class suburb of western Johannesburg built on the bulldozed rubble of Sophiatown, once one of black South Africa's cultural heartlands. Whilst gardening she kept digging up its remnants, just like one of the characters in her novel Triomf, which excavates the lives of the impoverished poor white culture that superseded it. Sophiatown boasted names like Masekela and Mandela amongst its cultural riches but the Benades family inhabit a far from triumphant world of cheap brandy and coke, kaput cars, irreparable fridges and broken political promises.

Mol, Treppie, Pop and Lambert Benades inhabit a crumbling government house that is all they own apart from each other. Mol, abused and ageing, is comforted only by her beloved mongrels, her numbed resilience as forlorn as her buttonless housecoat. Alienated, articulate Treppie, "a devil with a twist, a twisted devil", furiously turns his frustrated intellectual abilities against his family. Pop, shuffling bemusedly between sleep and waking, tries to remember his lies as he slips towards death. All of them protect the doltish, violent, voyeuristic Lambert, the epileptic progeny of parents who constantly reinvent fantasy stories, disguising a family secret that is a narrative time bomb waiting to explode into the heart of the novel. "We have each other and nothing else", is their refrain, a catchphrase for the survival of a demoralised family adrift from the tide of change, where incest has become a metaphor for the crooked logic of obsessive racial purity, just as the topographical layering of Triomf over Sophiatown becomes a guiding metaphor for the social architecture of apartheid.

Triomf depicts apartheid racism with an uncompromising exactness that has sometimes been lost in white South African writing in English slanted towards a middle class perspective. As the Benades veer between aggressive passivity and directionless activity terrorising each other and their neighbours, Van Niekerk invites the reader to despise the narrowly ignorant sensibilities evoked by their racist vernacular, whose idiom is skilfully echoed in poet Leon de Kock's meticulous translation.

Whilst the novel makes no pretences about the ugliness of racism, its radical success lies in the way it starkly realises the hard reality that the Benades' position as whites gives them few privileges. Van Niekerk tells their story in a bleakly hilarious mode of comic degradation that captures strikingly the unexalted expectations of a forgotten class. Theirs is the desperation of those who have nothing to lose, of an underclass who have only the vaguest recollection of self-respect and just treatment for others and themselves. For the armblankes (poor whites), she shows, notions of superiority were built on nothing but the detritus of another culture and the promises of betterment peddled in the weak Romanticism of blood-and-soil nationalism byoudentlik (proper, middle class) Afrikaners, empty illusions described by Treppie as, "the fine print of fuck-all."

Although Triomf is a startlingly comic yet salutary reminder of the sustenance racism gives to class inequalities, it stops short of representing the social rehabilitation of South Africa's poor whites. In what is possibly the first truly post-apartheid novel by a white writer deserving the description, Van Niekerk opts wisely to leave the hopes of reconciliation beyond the boundaries of her fictional excavation of the suburbs of truth.--Rachel Holmes Afrikaans author Marlene Van Niekerk lived for a time in Triomf, the white working class suburb of western Johannesburg built on the bulldozed rubble of Sophiatown, once one of black South Africa's cultural heartlands. Whilst gardening she kept digging up its remnants, just like one of the characters in her novel Triomf, which excavates the lives of the impoverished poor white culture that superseded it. Sophiatown boasted names like Masekela and Mandela amongst its cultural riches but the Benades family inhabit a far from triumphant world of cheap brandy and coke, kaput cars, irreparable fridges and broken political promises.

Mol, Treppie, Pop and Lambert Benades inhabit a crumbling government house that is all they own apart from each other. Mol, abused and ageing, is comforted only by her beloved mongrels, her numbed resilience as forlorn as her buttonless housecoat. Alienated, articulate Treppie, "a devil with a twist, a twisted devil", furiously turns his frustrated intellectual abilities against his family. Pop, shuffling bemusedly between sleep and waking, tries to remember his lies as he slips towards death. All of them protect the doltish, violent, voyeuristic Lambert, the epileptic progeny of parents who constantly reinvent fantasy stories, disguising a family secret that is a narrative time bomb waiting to explode into the heart of the novel. "We have each other and nothing else", is their refrain, a catchphrase for the survival of a demoralised family adrift from the tide of change, where incest has become a metaphor for the crooked logic of obsessive racial purity, just as the topographical layering of Triomf over Sophiatown becomes a guiding metaphor for the social architecture of apartheid.

Triomf depicts apartheid racism with an uncompromising exactness that has sometimes been lost in white South African writing in English slanted towards a middle class perspective. As the Benades veer between aggressive passivity and directionless activity terrorising each other and their neighbours, Van Niekerk invites the reader to despise the narrowly ignorant sensibilities evoked by their racist vernacular, whose idiom is skilfully echoed in poet Leon de Kock's meticulous translation.

Whilst the novel makes no pretences about the ugliness of racism, its radical success lies in the way it starkly realises the hard reality that the Benades' position as whites gives them few privileges. Van Niekerk tells their story in a bleakly hilarious mode of comic degradation that captures strikingly the unexalted expectations of a forgotten class. Theirs is the desperation of those who have nothing to lose, of an underclass who have only the vaguest recollection of self-respect and just treatment for others and themselves. For the armblankes (poor whites), she shows, notions of superiority were built on nothing but the detritus of another culture and the promises of betterment peddled in the weak Romanticism of blood-and-soil nationalism byoudentlik (proper, middle class) Afrikaners, empty illusions described by Treppie as, "the fine print of fuck-all."

Although Triomf is a startlingly comic yet salutary reminder of the sustenance racism gives to class inequalities, it stops short of representing the social rehabilitation of South Africa's poor whites. In what is possibly the first truly post-apartheid novel by a white writer deserving the description, Van Niekerk opts wisely to leave the hopes of reconciliation beyond the boundaries of her fictional excavation of the suburbs of truth.--Rachel Holmes

South African reader in South Africa, 22 Dec 2007
For me personally this book is a masterpiece. Unfortunately I am not sufficiently fluent in Afrikaans to have read this its original writing. But Leon de Kock has done a remarkable job with the translation, capturing an outlook on life, by what can best described as, four somewhat sad and pathetic characters. The aspects of Afikaanerdom addressed in this book have been kept well hidden throughout the years, lest we should find out that white Afikaaner South Africans are not all that perfect, that many were hopelessly misled into believing that the Apartheid government really meant to raise them out of their squalored lives, that many were hopelessly misled into believing that their white skin gave them genetic superiority over black South Africans.

Its an uncomfortable read for a white South African, not a surprising one but certainly a sobering one. This book could well seem confusing, possibly even pointless to someone who has never lived in South Africa. This is not be a book for someone to read to get some insight into social commentary on South African life. It would be better read against a backdrop of a personal experience of living here. It is also heavily laced in South African colloquialism which could well deter some folk from reading it and it does labour in places. But I would urge anyone who has ever lived in South Africa or has roots here to read it - its an insightful commentary that flows between sad, tragic, pathetic and embarrassing.



SA reader in London, 16 Feb 2001
A great book, well worth the read! Both funny and tragic, you really grow to love the Bernade family as they struggle through life the best way they know how. The characters are all interesting, different and believeable and it was certainly fascinating from a middle class South Africans point of view to get a flavour of how it must have been for poor whites in the old SA.

A promising beginning which sadly faded, 13 Oct 2000
I think Triomf is a superb book in many ways: the evocative language, the grotesquely fascinating characters, the cabin-fever atmosphere of their dreadful house. I read it willing it to be good. But, and this is a big but, despite being gripped by the first 300 pages, it began to lose me and finishing it became a labour of love. I think this is because Van Niekerk gets the tension misplaced. The first half of the book is so compelling, with tension so marvellously built, that I came to the second half expecting some kind of explosion and found a fizzle.

Perhaps this is the 'comedy' of the book - that she leads you to expect Armageddon and what you get is something rather pathetic and sad. Whether this was the writer's intention or not, I don't know, but it left me flat and disappointed.

I do think Triomf is a triumph in many ways, but I also think it is too long and doesn't live up to its promise.

Rich characterisation of an under-class, 29 Jul 2000
I have just finished reading Triomf and am still reeling from its impact on my sensibilities. The richly drawn characters, atmosphere and humour, despite the "horries" of "reaping the seeds" of incest, make this a compelling read.

The tragedy of this family is its total inability to help itself. Their poverty and circumstances, which go back generations, are so entrenched, that they are trapped by them. Treppie, despite his wisdom and intelligence, can do no better than work at the "Chinese". Lambert longs for social contact. The only chances he gets come from calling political parties, religious fanatics, a prostitute and watching the neighbours. All react with understandable revulsion to him and his family. He, in turn knows only one way to respond and that is with violence towards his mother and his home, and of course, his inevitable fits. Pop and Mol accept their lot as the norm.

"Triomf" is not always a comfortable read but it never fails in its entertainment value. Marlene van Niekerk has a great empathy and understanding for the underclass that her characters inhabit. Her art is in the fact that you end up liking them.

Brilliant portrayal of life at the bottom of the foodchain, 14 Jul 2000
This is a book about poor South African whites around the time of the 1994 elections. They were the "privileged" whites who were guaranteed a job under apartheid - yet somehow they are still right at the bottom of the foodchain. This dysfunctional family does not need to be South African - they could be British, French, American - anywhere. They are the type of family we would cross the road to avoid which is why this insight into their lives is so fascinating.

The language is crude but necessary. Their actions are things we would choose to ignore in the hope that they would go away - out of sight - out of mind. Read this stunning book just to see the talent coming out of South Africa.

South African reader in South Africa, 22 Dec 2007
For me personally this book is a masterpiece. Unfortunately I am not sufficiently fluent in Afrikaans to have read this its original writing. But Leon de Kock has done a remarkable job with the translation, capturing an outlook on life, by what can best described as, four somewhat sad and pathetic characters. The aspects of Afikaanerdom addressed in this book have been kept well hidden throughout the years, lest we should find out that white Afikaaner South Africans are not all that perfect, that many were hopelessly misled into believing that the Apartheid government really meant to raise them out of their squalored lives, that many were hopelessly misled into believing that their white skin gave them genetic superiority over black South Africans.

Its an uncomfortable read for a white South African, not a surprising one but certainly a sobering one. This book could well seem confusing, possibly even pointless to someone who has never lived in South Africa. This is not be a book for someone to read to get some insight into social commentary on South African life. It would be better read against a backdrop of a personal experience of living here. It is also heavily laced in South African colloquialism which could well deter some folk from reading it and it does labour in places. But I would urge anyone who has ever lived in South Africa or has roots here to read it - its an insightful commentary that flows between sad, tragic, pathetic and embarrassing.



SA reader in London, 16 Feb 2001
A great book, well worth the read! Both funny and tragic, you really grow to love the Bernade family as they struggle through life the best way they know how. The characters are all interesting, different and believeable and it was certainly fascinating from a middle class South Africans point of view to get a flavour of how it must have been for poor whites in the old SA.

A promising beginning which sadly faded, 13 Oct 2000
I think Triomf is a superb book in many ways: the evocative language, the grotesquely fascinating characters, the cabin-fever atmosphere of their dreadful house. I read it willing it to be good. But, and this is a big but, despite being gripped by the first 300 pages, it began to lose me and finishing it became a labour of love. I think this is because Van Niekerk gets the tension misplaced. The first half of the book is so compelling, with tension so marvellously built, that I came to the second half expecting some kind of explosion and found a fizzle.

Perhaps this is the 'comedy' of the book - that she leads you to expect Armageddon and what you get is something rather pathetic and sad. Whether this was the writer's intention or not, I don't know, but it left me flat and disappointed.

I do think Triomf is a triumph in many ways, but I also think it is too long and doesn't live up to its promise.

Rich characterisation of an under-class, 29 Jul 2000
I have just finished reading Triomf and am still reeling from its impact on my sensibilities. The richly drawn characters, atmosphere and humour, despite the "horries" of "reaping the seeds" of incest, make this a compelling read.

The tragedy of this family is its total inability to help itself. Their poverty and circumstances, which go back generations, are so entrenched, that they are trapped by them. Treppie, despite his wisdom and intelligence, can do no better than work at the "Chinese". Lambert longs for social contact. The only chances he gets come from calling political parties, religious fanatics, a prostitute and watching the neighbours. All react with understandable revulsion to him and his family. He, in turn knows only one way to respond and that is with violence towards his mother and his home, and of course, his inevitable fits. Pop and Mol accept their lot as the norm.

"Triomf" is not always a comfortable read but it never fails in its entertainment value. Marlene van Niekerk has a great empathy and understanding for the underclass that her characters inhabit. Her art is in the fact that you end up liking them.

Brilliant portrayal of life at the bottom of the foodchain, 14 Jul 2000
This is a book about poor South African whites around the time of the 1994 elections. They were the "privileged" whites who were guaranteed a job under apartheid - yet somehow they are still right at the bottom of the foodchain. This dysfunctional family does not need to be South African - they could be British, French, American - anywhere. They are the type of family we would cross the road to avoid which is why this insight into their lives is so fascinating.

The language is crude but necessary. Their actions are things we would choose to ignore in the hope that they would go away - out of sight - out of mind. Read this stunning book just to see the talent coming out of South Africa.